County's growth continues but at slower rate

The rate of population growth in Chester County has leveled off since the development boom of the 1990s and 2000s, newly released figures from the U.S. Census show.

But that’s not bad, according to Ronald Bailey, executive director of the county planning commission.

Economic and demographic factors have combined to slow considerably the rate of growth in suburban and ex-urban areas — those ring suburbs outside the traditional metropolitan areas in Pennsylvania. But although Chester County is still growing at a fast pace compared with other counties across the commonwealth, that growth is coming in different locales.

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Bailey said the population trends appear to favor urban areas or already developed areas of townships rather than formerly undeveloped rural landscapes. The trend is most noticeable in the population of Philadelphia, which added more than twice the number of new residents than Chester County between April 2010 and July 2011.

“We expect Chester County to continue to be one of the fast-growing counties in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Bailey said in an interview Friday. But he and other planners are deliberately trying to “tone down” predictions for the county’s growth in the coming years.

“Changes in the economy, the recession, changes in the character of households over the decade have created more demand for people to live in urban centers” of the county like Phoenixville, Downingtown, and Malvern, he said. “That’s a good thing. That’s what (the county’s planning model) urges.”

According to the newly released census figures, the first set of figures to use the enumerated resident population from the 2010 Census, the population of Chester County stood at 503,897 in July 2011. It is the first time the county’s population has topped the half-million mark.

As a comparison, the county’s population grew at a rate of more than 15 percent from 2000 to 2010.

The county’s growth was 1 percent, tying it with Lehigh and Tioga counties for second-fastest growing county in the period. Cumberland County, in the state’s south central area, was tops, with 1.1 percent growth. But Chester County had the greatest number of new residents of those fast growing counties, with 5,011; Cumberland added 2,484 between April 2010 and July 2011, while Tioga County, along the state’s northern border with New York, added only 438 residents.

The census figures highlight the growth in Philadelphia, which saw 10,465 new residents, the largest of any numerical change of the state’s 67 counties. Chester County’s numerical growth placed it second in new residents.

Bailey said that it came as no surprise to planners in the region to see Philadelphia’s growth.

The trend towards development in suburban counties has largely dried up because of the downturn in the economy that started in 2008. Developers no longer have access to capital from lending sources to building housing subdivisions in places where there is no local infrastructure, he said, and potential homeowners have seen their ability to get guaranteed mortgage loans curtailed by problems with the country’s two largest lenders, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

And Bailey said many potential new homeowners — those recent college graduates — are coming into the workplace with large debts from college loans and limited job prospects. They are less willing to take on additional debt as mortgage holders, and so look for different housing options.

“We’ve got lots of people coming out of colleges and universities who took out loan and they are having a tough time getting good jobs and paying those loans down,” he said.” That is going to discourage them from taking on more debt in the form of mortgages.”

That leads them to urban areas that have existing housing stock and lower costs, like the county’s boroughs, or to multi-family developments in densely developed areas of townships, such as West Goshen, West Whiteland, and East Whiteland.

“Clearly the land is not going to be available for greenfield development in rural townships” as in the past, he said.

Pennsylvania’s population grew an estimate 40,507 between 2010 and 2011, according to the figures.

In the Philadelphia suburbs, the total population stands at 4,030,926. Montgomery County is still the most populated of the suburban counties, with 804,210 residents, following by Bucks County, with 626,854; Delaware County, with 559,494, and Chester County, with 503,897. There were 1,536,471 people in Philadelphia.